Caravaggio from Lugano — and the Polish Man for Italian Errands

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Andrzej Voigt

In October 2010, a Swiss bank bought a Caravaggio painting. By itself. On its own premises. For 3,050,000 Swiss francs. Both experts who had authenticated the work just before the auction were dead within twelve months.

The seller’s legal representative was a small law firm in Lugano. Today its second partner is Dario Item — a Swiss national, ambassador of Antigua and Barbuda to three European countries, and incidentally a man whom a Caribbean court found to have lied in an application for a banking licence.

Into this network — documented for eight years — is woven a certain Pole. A man who introduces himself to the public as „Candidate for President of the Republic of Poland. Knight of the Cross of Freedom and Solidarity. Advisor to the Leadership of the Supreme Audit Office.” His name is Andrzej Voigt.

Read on.

Lugano, 25 October 2010. A bank buys from itself.

The auditorium of BSI SA bank at Via Peri 23 in Lugano. The auctioneer announces the lot: oil on canvas, 66 by 52.5 centimetres, attributed to Caravaggio. The painting bears the title Il ragazzo con una caraffa di rose — „Boy with a Carafe of Roses”. For fifteen years it had rested quietly in a vault. The owner had defaulted on obligations. Forced sale.

Two parties entered the bidding. BSI — the very bank whose vault had held the painting. And „a representative of an Italian private buyer”. The price climbed in increments of 10,000, 50,000, 100,000 francs. Fifty-four raises. Eventually the Italian dropped out at 3,050,000 CHF.

The bank bought. From itself. In its own building.

Even at this stage, the question must be asked: who deposits three million francs into their own account? To what end? What a coincidence that the „Italian buyer” withdrew precisely one hundred francs short of the ceiling the bank was prepared to pay? The question is rhetorical.

The seller’s legal representative — that anonymous individual who had kept the Caravaggio in a bank vault for fifteen years — was attorney Patric Pellegatta of I&P Law Office SA in Lugano. Remember that name. It will return.

Aukcja, która odbyła się w siedzibie BSI przy via Peri, rozegrała się wyłącznie między bankiem a przedstawicielem prywatnego włoskiego [nabywcy].

(„The auction, which took place at BSI’s premises on via Peri, unfolded exclusively between the bank and the representative of a private Italian [buyer].”)

(Ticinonews, 25.10.2010) 1

The US Treasury Department’s 2022 report identifies the art market as particularly susceptible to value laundering — owing to the subjectivity of valuations and the anonymity of transactions 2.

In civilised jurisdictions, such transactions are conducted before a supervisory body. In Lugano — in one’s own auditorium, between fifteen bids.

The experts died. Coincidence?

Before the auction, two experts had certified the painting’s authenticity. Prof. Maurizio Marini of Rome — author of the monograph, „world specialist” — personally signed the back of the canvas. Sir Denis Mahon — a centenarian London baronet, doyen of the field — confirmed the attribution, adding with flair that before the war the painting had belonged to London collector Tancred Borenius.

Mahon died on 24 April 2011. Less than six months after the auction 3.

Marini died on 6 August 2011. Barely twelve months later 4.

Which meant that no new generation of experts — armed with full materials-analysis tools — could verify or challenge their attribution „at source”. A pure coincidence. Two elderly gentlemen. These things happen.

Four years later, the London court in Thwaytes v Sotheby’s [2015] EWHC 36 (Ch) — a case involving another alleged Caravaggio — accepted an expert’s testimony about Mahon:

[Sir Denis] was like a wine expert who knew where every vineyard was and when were the best vintages, but whose ability to distinguish one glass from another was seriously impaired.

(BAILII, Thwaytes v Sotheby’s, 2015) 5

The court discredited Mahon’s method. Five years too late for BSI — and four years too late for Marini himself, who had already been dead for four years. Keith Christiansen of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York called that same painting „an obvious later copy, and not a particularly distinguished one at that”.

These things happen.

The ambassador. The one who lied.

Back to Patric Pellegatta — the seller’s representative in 2010. Pellegatta operates in Lugano the firm I&P Law Office SA, Viale Carlo Cattaneo 1, registration number CHE-115.312.495. He founded it on 23 December 2009 — less than a year before the Caravaggio auction. It appears someone had been making preparations well in advance.

From 2022, the board of I&P Law Office officially includes a second gentleman. Dario Item, scion of Swiss-Antiguan lineage 6.

Who is Mr Dario Item? According to available records: a Swiss lawyer with an office in Madrid, Ambassador of Antigua and Barbuda to Spain, Liechtenstein, and Monaco, Permanent Representative to the UNWTO, freshly minted „Earl of Rothes” (a Scottish baronetcy — purchased, not inherited), and listed in the OpenSanctions database as a PEP — Politically Exposed Person 7.

In August 2018, the ambassador approached Antigua’s financial regulator (FSRC) with an application for a Class 1 banking licence for his company Julius Capital Bank Inc. On the form — a routine question:

Czy którakolwiek ze stron tej aplikacji ubiegała się kiedykolwiek o zezwolenie na prowadzenie działalności w innej jurysdykcji?

(„Has any party to this application ever applied for a licence to conduct business in any other jurisdiction?”)

The ambassador’s answer: „no”. No.

Yet the ambassador had for years been quietly operating another bank — Blue Investment Bank Inc. in Labuan, Malaysia. On 22 May 2020, the licence for that bank was surrendered to the Labuan FSA regulator — under circumstances whose details are known only to the parties to those proceedings. The bank still appears on the official list of that regulator under the heading „surrendered” 8. The ambassador himself was described in a court judgment from Antigua (to which we will turn in a moment) as „corporately disqualified” in Malaysia.

The High Court of Antigua in its judgment AG 2022 HC 010 of 1 March 2022 found with respect to the ambassador:

co najmniej wiedzę konstruktywną o działaniach administracyjnych podjętych przeciwko jego powiązanym podmiotom w Malezji

(„at least constructive knowledge of the administrative actions taken against his associated entities in Malaysia”)

(Vlex, judgment AG 2022 HC 010) 9

Translated from judicial understatement into plain English: the court indicated that the ambassador possessed knowledge which he had not disclosed in his application.

And the OffshoreAlert newsroom put it rather less diplomatically. David Marchant wrote:

Działający w Madrycie szwajcarski prawnik Dario Item, lat 49, pełniący funkcję ambasadora Antiguii i Barbudy w Hiszpanii, Liechtensteinie i Monako, skłamał wobec antigańskiego regulatora finansowego.

(„Madrid-based Swiss lawyer Dario Item, aged 49, acting as ambassador of Antigua and Barbuda to Spain, Liechtenstein, and Monaco, lied to the Antiguan financial regulator.”)

(OffshoreAlert, 01.03.2022) 10

What did the ambassador do after publication? He petitioned Google to have the OffshoreAlert article removed from European search results. And he succeeded. In Europe, that article is no longer returned by Google. The Right to Be Forgotten at its finest.

This is the gentleman whose firm represented the anonymous seller of the Caravaggio in Lugano in 2010. These are the ties. This is the league.

The bank that no longer exists.

BSI SA — the bank that in 2010 bought the Caravaggio from itself for 3,050,000 CHF — ceased to exist six years later. On 24 May 2016, Swiss regulator FINMA revoked its licence:

poważne naruszenia ustawowych wymogów należytej staranności w odniesieniu do prania pieniędzy

(„serious violations of the statutory due diligence requirements in relation to money laundering”)

(FINMA, 24.05.2016) 11

The reason: the 1MDB scandal. The bank had serviced Malaysia’s state fund, from which some twenty-odd billion dollars dispersed across the world. A year earlier, on 30 March 2015, BSI had paid the US Department of Justice 211 million dollars in a settlement for concealing American citizens’ accounts 12.

BSI’s assets were taken over by EFG International. BSI — the bank whose vault had held the Caravaggio for fifteen years before it bought the painting from itself — ended up mixed into the paperwork, listed by Tagesschau as „yet another Swiss scandal”.

This, then — for the record — is the institution whose Caravaggio attribution was deemed „credible” in 2010.

A portfolio worth 100 million. Milan, NFTs, federal court.

In 2018, Lorenzo Grassini — who announced himself as „the creator of the world’s first investment instrument dedicated to acquiring Non-Performing Loans secured by works of art” — purchased the Caravaggio from BSI. He said so himself:

W 2018 r. przyciągnąłem uwagę publiczną i światowych mediów zakupem słynnego obrazu Caravaggia zwanego 'Ragazzo con Caraffa di Rose’, który znajdował się poza Włochami.

(„In 2018, I attracted public attention and worldwide media coverage with the purchase of the famous Caravaggio painting known as 'Ragazzo con Caraffa di Rose’, which had been outside Italy.”)

(lorenzograssini.eu) 13

The declared acquisition price — 30 million euros. That is ten times what BSI paid eight years earlier. Such is how the „value” of artworks „grows” when they pass through the right hands.

According to Italian newspaper Il Tirreno, the Carabinieri TPC — the cultural heritage protection unit — opened verification proceedings regarding the painting in 2019 14. The outcome is not publicly known. These things happen.

On 7 December 2021, Grassini, through his company Rochel Invest PLC (Companies House UK 13574862), announced a partnership with Milan’s „museum” DART — Dynamic Art Museum. The press release proclaimed „a new financial instrument” backed by a portfolio of works with a combined value of approximately 100 million euros. The announcement listed, among others, Fontana, Léger, Manzoni, Picasso, Raphael, and Titian 15. Grassini references the Caravaggio separately, however — on his own website.

Concurrently, the same „museum” was running an NFT tokenisation project for artworks under the name „DART 2121 Crypto Art Is Now”. Because if something can be sold for money once, why not run it through cryptocurrency as well.

And here the seams begin to unravel. Because a US federal court in New Jersey, in its ruling of 19 December 2025 in August Uribe Fine Art LLC v. DartMilano SRL (Civil Action 22-3104), established that DART had been using paintings from its portfolio as loan collateral with American firm Art Lending Inc. — without the knowledge of their actual sellers. Quoting directly from the judgment:

Bez wiedzy [zbywcy] UFA, DART zamierzał użyć obrazu jako zabezpieczenia pożyczki, o którą ubiegał się u Art Lending. (…) piąta pożyczka opiewająca na 14,6 mln USD.

(„Without [seller] UFA’s knowledge, DART intended to use the painting as collateral for a loan it was seeking from Art Lending. (…) the fifth loan amounting to $14.6 million.”)

(govinfo.gov, 19.12.2025) 16

Kenny Schachter of Artnet News put it this way in December 2023:

Nie zamierzałem ujawnić największej, najbardziej wybuchowej sprawy potencjalnego fraudu w świecie sztuki od czasu Inigo Philbricka – ale właśnie to zrobiłem.

(„I did not set out to expose the biggest, most explosive case of potential fraud in the art world since Inigo Philbrick — but that is precisely what I have done.”)

(Artnet News, 08.12.2023) 17

The Milan Tribunal ordered the judicial liquidation of DART in January 2024 18. Rochel Invest PLC was compulsorily struck off in the UK on 24 June 2025 — but not before Grassini had quietly re-registered it in Cyprus (ΗΕ 455975).

Where is the Caravaggio from Lugano today? Unknown. These things happen.

And then a Pole enters the picture.

Because up to this point one might have thought — well, an Italian story. Should we care how Messrs Pellegatta, Item, Grassini and Lanza move between banks in Lugano and Milan? Italians care — and they can have it.

But so should we. Because in this same network of entities, a certain Pole has been documented for eight years.

NEXTA Limited. Registered in London under Companies House number 08983594. Founded on 7 April 2014 by an Italian from Rome — Orlando Taddeo. Official activity: telecommunications. Actual activity — see below.

The chronology of that company’s directors, set out in black and white in the British register:

  • Orlando Taddeo (Rome) — 04.2014 – 07.2015
  • Andrzej Voigt (Nadarzyn, near Warsaw) — 17 July 2015 – 1 March 2017
  • Several Italian gentlemen thereafter
  • Lorenzo Grassini, Dr. — 1 June 2020 – 14 August 2021, as Chairman
  • Company compulsorily struck off 14 June 2022 for failure to file required documents

(Companies House) 19

Voigt and Grassini were not on the board simultaneously. They served as directors of the same company in succession. Voigt was the sole Pole in a fully Italian board. Grassini — the Caravaggio man — assumed the position ten months after Voigt’s departure.

The company had an ultimate beneficial owner (PSC — Person with Significant Control): Terra S.p.A. of Rome, Via Ludovisi 16. The ultimate beneficiary of that Terra is not to be found in any public register. Privacy, as they say.

And now the best part.

NEXTA’s registered address: 1 Purley Place, Islington, London N1 1QA. Agent: Accountsco (PG&E Professional Services Limited, Companies House 07074536). At the very same address, with the very same agent, another company was also registered:

  • PWS Corporation Ltd (09895793) — director Andrzej Voigt from 1 December 2015, dissolved 9 July 2019 20
  • NEXTA Limited (08983594) — Voigt and Grassini

And then there is a further British company of Grassini’s — NILOR PLC (09782797), registered in another part of Islington (20 Wenlock Road) — with the same Lorenzo Grassini as the person controlling more than 75 percent of the shares 21. Different address, same borough, same man.

Plus a fourth Grassini company — Rochel Invest PLC (13574862) — compulsorily dissolved in the UK in June 2025 22.

Three companies at a single London address. Two operated by Voigt, one by Grassini. Plus a fourth Grassini company nearby. Two men, one small street in Islington, one registration agent for the principal entities.

Polish capital for Italian money. Or the other way round.

Let us go deeper. Because NEXTA UK is not the first trace of Voigt’s collaboration with Italians.

Polish company Biopal Sp. z o.o. (KRS 0000462058), whose management board included Voigt, had an Italian shareholder from 5 April 2007 — Finanziaria Italiana SA 23. That is eight years before Voigt took his directorial seat at NEXTA UK. Biopal’s share capital at the time the Italian shareholder entered — 5,235,000 PLN (according to Northdata). The company was liquidated in 2024. The full beneficial ownership structure of Finanziaria Italiana SA — undisclosed.

AV Inwestor SA (KRS 0000229750), Voigt’s principal business vehicle in Poland — had a single 100-percent shareholder: PWS Corporation Ltd of Islington, London, namely the very one at the Accountsco address 24. PWS was dissolved in July 2019 — fewer than eight weeks after acquiring 100 percent of AV Inwestor. The shares of the Polish company suddenly „hung in the air” with an entity that had ceased to exist. After Voigt’s criminal conviction, his son Patryk Andrzej assumed control of AV Inwestor’s board.

What we are dealing with here is a structure in which Polish companies are formally controlled by London entities registered at a filing agent’s address, which are in turn controlled by Italian companies with publicly undisclosed beneficial ownership structures. The registry data is unambiguous. What follows operationally is a question that only tax control authorities and law enforcement can answer. We present the registry facts. Only this time, a Polish national from Nadarzyn is at the very centre of the structure.

A CV as a façade. What Voigt isn’t telling you.

Andrzej Voigt on LinkedIn, Wikipedia, and in email signatures presents himself as „Economist. Candidate for President of the Republic of Poland 2020. Knight of the Cross of Freedom and Solidarity. Expert of the European Commission.” Each of these claims is worth running through the filter of documents and facts.

Candidate for President of the Republic of Poland 2020. On 7 February 2020, Voigt himself, in an interview with Wprost, announced that he wished to run for President of Poland. The headline: „Andrzej Voigt chce kandydować na prezydenta: Nie mam kompleksu Polaczka” („Andrzej Voigt wants to run for president: I have no Polish inferiority complex”) 25. He then, on 7 March 2020, held a meeting with residents of Kościerzyna at Stary Browar — an event that even made it onto local YouTube 26.

Note: he announced himself. Because to become a formal candidate — one must collect 100,000 citizens’ signatures. Voigt did not come close.

The National Electoral Commission (PKW), in Resolution No. 101/2020 of 30 March 2020, refused to register his candidacy. I quote from the resolution verbatim:

„W związku z doręczeniem w dniu 26 marca 2020 r. wraz ze zgłoszeniem Kandydata 509 arkuszy wykazu podpisów obywateli popierających Kandydata, zawierających 5 102 podpisy, Państwowa Komisja Wyborcza ustaliła, że w sumie do zgłoszenia kandydata (liczba podpisów załączonych do zawiadomienia o utworzeniu komitetu wyborczego i do zgłoszenia Kandydata) załączono 6 731 podpisów poparcia.”

(PKW Resolution No. 101/2020) 27

Five thousand one hundred and two. Out of the required one hundred thousand. 6.7 percent of the mandatory minimum. Furthermore, as the press reported, the bundle contained signatures of deceased individuals.

Voigt publicly proclaimed himself a candidate in January 2020. He did not become one. Because he collected barely one-tenth of the required signatures. Yet in footers, biographies, and on LinkedIn to this day it reads: „Candidate for President of the Republic of Poland in 2020”. Five years he has kept that citation alive. The mechanism is simple — he announced himself, the announcement exists, and the fact that he never gathered the signatures is a detail Voigt omits. This is how the title factory works at Andrzej Voigt’s.

Cross of Freedom and Solidarity. Voigt received this state decoration in 2015 at the nomination of the author of this article — Director of the LEX NOSTRA Foundation — whom Voigt had misled regarding his past.

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg (ECHR). Voigt communicated publicly that the ECHR in Strasbourg had… acquitted him. The HUDOC documents say something quite different. The case Voigt v Poland (Application 30618/09) ended on 30 November 2010 with a friendly settlement:

Trybunał przyjmuje do wiadomości ugodę polubowną osiągniętą między stronami. […] właściwe jest skreślenie sprawy z listy.

(„The Court takes note of the friendly settlement reached between the parties. […] it is appropriate to strike the case out of the list.”)

(HUDOC, Voigt v Poland) 28

Poland paid 20,000 PLN for excessively prolonged proceedings. The European Court of Human Rights never ruled and has never ruled on Andrzej Voigt’s innocence — it found only that the proceedings had been unreasonably protracted. Consequently, it struck the case from its list.

Criminal conviction. We omit the specifics here. As we reported in June 2024 in the article Skandaliczny wyrok Sądu Okręgowego Wydziału Karnego w Warszawie! („Scandalous verdict of the Criminal Division of the District Court in Warsaw!”) 29 — there was a case reference, a statutory provision, a sum of loss, a fine. Interested readers are referred to the article published two years ago on the Foundation’s website.

One more fact should be added: consumer bankruptcy in 2016, Court and Commercial Gazette (Monitor Sądowy i Gospodarczy) 2016/23/2391 30. Also modestly omitted from biographies — so they might fit the image of a „man of success”.

„EC / EIC Expert”. Voigt lists himself as „Expert Evaluator, European Commission (Horizon Europe / EIC), September 2018 – June 2023”. In plain terms: an external reviewer of project applications under an open-call procedure. Hundreds of such reviewers are engaged at any given time. This is not a position within the European Commission. This is not an „EC expert”. It is the equivalent of a freelance assignment reviewing grant application documentation. The title „Expert Evaluator” has a respectable ring to it — and Voigt milks it accordingly.

Executive MBA at UCLA. On his public LinkedIn profile, Voigt declares his education as: „University of California, Los Angeles — Executive MBA, Field Study jointly with EMBA Donau University Krems, 1995–1996”. This sounds impressive — the famous Californian business school. Only that Voigt never completed an MBA at UCLA. What he describes is a „Field Study” — a short study module — conducted as part of the Executive MBA programme run by Donau University Krems in Austria. And here a second detail: Donau University Krems did not confer any MBA degree before 1998 31. So Voigt claims an MBA from the years 1995–1996 — from a university that was not yet awarding that degree. From UCLA — which he did not graduate from.

Why does all this matter?

Here is why. Andrzej Voigt of Nadarzyn — candidate for President of Poland, Knight of the Cross of Freedom and Solidarity, „EC Expert” — is documentably the only Pole on the board of a UK company whose subsequent Chairman was the man who claims to have purchased a Caravaggio from a bank whose licence was revoked by FINMA for serious AML violations, registered with the same London filing agent as his second company.

Voigt’s Polish company, Biopal, has had an Italian shareholder with undisclosed beneficial ownership since 2007. AV Inwestor was owned by a London shell entity at the Accountsco address. PWS Corporation — his London shell — dissolved itself nine weeks after acquiring the Polish company.

To be precise — this is not an indictment. It is a documentary dossier. We leave the judgement to the reader.

What must be said, however, is this: FATF — the Financial Action Task Force, the intergovernmental standard-setting body for AML — in its 2023 report describes risk typologies for the art market. It explicitly identifies: multi-jurisdictional entity networks, anonymity of beneficial owners, artworks with subjective valuations, and financial institutions with a history of AML failings. This is a risk typology, not an automatic finding of abuse in any specific case. Nevertheless, each one of those elements — as you have read above — is present in the transaction chain set out here.

Przestępcy stosują tradycyjne techniki prania pieniędzy, w tym gotówkę i pośredników, by ukryć prawdziwe źródło dochodów przestępczych. […] zawyżanie i zaniżanie cen, powiązane z podatnością na subiektywność wyceny w rynku sztuki.

(„Criminals use traditional money laundering techniques, including cash and intermediaries, to conceal the true source of criminal proceeds. […] over- and under-pricing, linked to the vulnerability to valuation subjectivity in the art market.”)

(FATF, 2023 report) 32

For the avoidance of doubt — FATF describes risk typologies. This is not a finding of wrongdoing in any specific case. Criminal-legal assessment is the domain of law enforcement.

And now I return to the question posed at the very beginning of this article: who deposited those 3,050,000 Swiss francs in 2010 into a BSI Lugano account on behalf of the „anonymous client” whose vault the bank had maintained for 15 years? And why does the only Polish vector in this entire carousel of values — running from 2007 to 2026 — lead through Andrzej Voigt of Nadarzyn?

Those are questions to which Polish readers have a right to receive answers.

And finally — what you should also know

Briefly. Because each of these threads deserves its own article — and those articles you will in all likelihood be reading before long.

First — Marian Banaś. Andrzej Voigt — as Rzeczpospolita disclosed on 23 September 2025 33 — was an advisor hired by the outgoing head of Poland’s Supreme Audit Office (NIK), Marian Banaś, in the capacity of „Advisor to the NIK Leadership” — for 77 days, from 3 August to 4 October 2025. In plain terms: a lobbyist for the outgoing NIK president Marian Banaś. Banaś, since 12 November 2025, faces three criminal charges and a potential sentence of up to 10 years in prison. Voigt disappeared from the post three weeks earlier. These things happen.

On 18 September 2025 — while holding a position at NIK — Voigt, from his private Facebook account „prezydentvoigt”, publicly defended Banaś in his losing battle for re-election, attacking both Prime Minister Donald Tusk and party leader Jarosław Kaczyński for their support of the incoming NIK president Mariusz Haładyj 34. This is not neutral analysis — it is lobbying from the position of an advisor. Sixteen days later, Voigt was no longer in that post.

Second — Donald Tusk. Voigt frequently invokes his acquaintance with Prime Minister Donald Tusk. He does indeed originate — genuinely — from the circles of the Liberal Democratic Congress (KLD). Allegedly, according to Voigt, he and Prime Minister Tusk used to play football together. We found no hard evidence of this, however. Which does not prevent Voigt from presenting himself to foreign clients as „a contact into Polish politics at the highest level”.

Third — the LEX NOSTRA Foundation. In July 2022, Andrzej Voigt was removed by court order from the LEX NOSTRA Foundation Council for acting against its interests. In 2023 — he was criminally convicted for misappropriating a vehicle to the detriment of LEX NOSTRA (as we described in detail in June 2024 in the article Skandaliczny wyrok Sądu Okręgowego Wydziału Karnego w Warszawie! at fundacja.lexnostra.pl/wyrok-andrzej-voigt/ 29). A few weeks after his court-ordered removal from the Council — he appeared in a TVN24 report as a „credible source” defaming the Director of the LEX NOSTRA Foundation. On 23 September 2025, TVN24 journalist Robert Zieliński testified under oath during proceedings at the District Court in Warsaw — in the civil case XXV C 1046/24, LEX NOSTRA Foundation vs. TVN24 — that the aim of the publication was, quote, „to warn the public against contacts and the forming of professional relations with Maciej Lisowski„. What TVN24 has been doing for the past five years — publishing slanders about the LEX NOSTRA Foundation and its Director — has nothing to do with journalism. It is a despicable hate campaign conducted to order.

All of these threads — and in particular the collaboration with Marian Banaś — will be developed in full in subsequent articles. With documents. With sworn witness testimony. With a complete chronology. The reader will learn who, and for what reasons, commissioned the hate campaign against the LEX NOSTRA Foundation. And why a certain Polish „fixer” requires precisely the specific portfolio of Polish contacts he has assembled.

Maciej Lisowski

Director, LEX NOSTRA Foundation

 

Disclaimer

In view of the ongoing civil proceedings brought by the LEX NOSTRA Foundation against TVN24 (District Court in Warsaw, civil case XXV C 1046/24, LEX NOSTRA Foundation vs. TVN24, District Court in Warsaw), direct editorial contact with A. Voigt was not appropriate. This article is based exclusively on public documents — state registers, court judgments, regulatory announcements, and press publications, the full list of which appears in the footnotes.

The source materials for this article have been deposited with independent lawyers in three EU/EFTA jurisdictions and with international journalists in three countries. This measure is intended to safeguard the integrity of the documentation.

All photographs illustrating this article come from the public Facebook profile of Andrzej Voigt.

* * *

Footnotes

  1. Ticinonews — BSI Lugano auction, 25.10.2010 – https://www.ticinonews.ch/ticino/la-bsi-si-compra-il-caravaggio-73829
  2. US Treasury — Study on the Facilitation of Money Laundering and Terror Finance Through the Trade in Works of Art, 2022 – https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/Treasury_Study_WoA.pdf
  3. The Telegraph — obituary of Sir Denis Mahon, 28.04.2011 – https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/art-obituaries/8481701/Sir-Denis-Mahon.html
  4. VivereRoma — ten years since the death of Maurizio Marini, 06.08.2021 – https://www.vivereroma.org/2021/08/06/dieci-anni-fa-la-scomparsa-di-maurizio-marini-mostro-sacro-della-critica-darte-specialista-mondiale-del-caravaggio/1006316/
  5. BAILII — Thwaytes v Sotheby’s [2015] EWHC 36 (Ch) – https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2015/36.html
  6. Moneyhouse — I&P Law Office SA, board: Pellegatta and Item – https://www.moneyhouse.ch/en/company/i-p-law-office-sa-12799390891
  7. OpenSanctions — Dario Item, PEP status – https://www.opensanctions.org/search/?q=dario+item
  8. Labuan FSA — list of banks with surrendered and revoked licences (Blue Investment Bank Inc.) – https://www.labuanfsa.gov.my/clients/asset_717D5286-17F8-4620-B852-83CA4FFCC30C/contentms/img/documents/aob/banking/2025/List-of-Labuan-Banks-and-Investment-Banks-Surrendered-and-Revoked-21-March-2025_25032025.pdf
  9. Vlex — judgment of the High Court of Antigua and Barbuda AG 2022 HC 010, 01.03.2022 – https://ag.vlex.com/vid/julius-capital-bank-inc-902353222
  10. OffshoreAlert — David Marchant, 01.03.2022 – https://www.offshorealert.com/swiss-lawyer-dario-item-lied-to-obtain-antigua-banking-license-court-filing-indicates/
  11. FINMA — revocation of BSI SA licence, 24.05.2016 – https://www.finma.ch/en/news/2016/05/20160524-mm-bsi/
  12. DOJ — BSI SA, Swiss Bank Program, 30.03.2015 – https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/bsi-sa-lugano-switzerland-first-bank-reach-resolution-under-justice-department-s-swiss-bank
  13. lorenzograssini.eu — official website of Lorenzo Grassini – https://www.lorenzograssini.eu
  14. Il Tirreno — Carabinieri TPC verification proceedings, 2019 – https://www.iltirreno.it/lucca/sport/2019/03/16/news/accertamenti-sul-capolavoro-di-caravaggio-riportato-in-italia-1.30104052
  15. Comunicatistampa.net — Rochel Invest + DartMilano partnership, 07.12.2021 – https://www.comunicatistampa.net/promuovere-arte-rochel-invest-dartmilano/
  16. govinfo.gov — August Uribe Fine Art LLC v. DartMilano SRL, Civil Action 22-3104, judgment of 19.12.2025 – https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-njd-2_22-cv-03104/pdf/USCOURTS-njd-2_22-cv-03104-2.pdf
  17. Artnet News — Kenny Schachter on the DartMilano case, 08.12.2023 – https://news.artnet.com/market/pier-giulio-lanza-dynamic-art-museum-allegations-2401825
  18. Il Giorno — judicial liquidation of Dynamic Art Museum, 24.01.2024 – https://www.ilgiorno.it/milano/cultura/bolla-nft-arte-chiude-museo-unwprkka
  19. Companies House — NEXTA Limited 08983594 (director chronology, Voigt and Grassini) – https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/08983594/officers
  20. Companies House — PWS Corporation Ltd 09895793 (director: Andrzej Voigt) – https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09895793
  21. Companies House — NILOR PLC 09782797 (PSC: Lorenzo Grassini) – https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09782797
  22. Companies House — Rochel Invest PLC 13574862 (dissolved 24.06.2025) – https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/13574862
  23. Northdata — Andrzej Voigt connections profile, Biopal and Finanziaria Italiana SA from 05.04.2007 – https://www.northdata.com/Voigt,%20Andrzej,%20Nadarzyn/ue5
  24. Rejestr.io — AV Inwestor SA, KRS 0000229750, PWS Corporation as 100% shareholder – https://rejestr.io/krs/229750/av-inwestor
  25. Wprost — „Andrzej Voigt wants to run for president”, 07.02.2020 – https://www.wprost.pl/tylko-u-nas/10296416/andrzej-voigt-chce-kandydowac-na-prezydenta-nie-mam-kompleksu-polaczka.html
  26. YouTube — „Andrzej Voigt — Candidate for President of the Republic of Poland” (Kościerzyna, Stary Browar), 10.03.2020 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjPkZE8rDtA
  27. PKW — Resolution No. 101/2020 of 30.03.2020, refusal to register Voigt’s candidacy (5,102 signatures) – https://pkw.gov.pl/uploaded_files/1585598166_uchwala-nr-1012020-odmowa-kandydat.pdf
  28. HUDOC — Voigt v Poland (Application 30618/09), friendly settlement of 30.11.2010 – https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/app/conversion/docx/pdf?library=ECHR&id=001-102552&filename=VOIGT+v.+POLAND.pdf&logEvent=False
  29. LEX NOSTRA Foundation — „Scandalous verdict of the Criminal Division of the District Court in Warsaw!”, 06.2024 – https://fundacja.lexnostra.pl/wyrok-andrzej-voigt/
  30. Court and Commercial Gazette (*Monitor Sądowy i Gospodarczy*) — consumer bankruptcy of Voigt, MSiG 2016/23/2391 – https://www.imsig.pl/pozycja/2016/23/2391,Voigt_Andrzej
  31. Donau-Universität Krems — official university history (MBA only from 1998) – https://www.donau-uni.ac.at/en/university/about/history.html
  32. FATF — „Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing in the Art and Antiquities Market”, 2023 report – https://www.fatf-gafi.org/en/publications/methodsandtrends/money-laundering-terrorist-financing-art-antiquities-market.html
  33. Rzeczpospolita — „Striking at the new NIK president. Marian Banaś’s ruthless battle for his position”, 23.09.2025 – https://www.rp.pl/kraj/art43058091-uderzenie-w-nowego-prezesa-nik-bezwzgledna-walka-mariana-banasia-o-stanowisko
  34. Facebook — profile „prezydentvoigt” (Andrzej Voigt), post of 18.09.2025 regarding the appointment of M. Haładyj as NIK president and the defence of M. Banaś – https://www.facebook.com/prezydentvoigt

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